Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde Team Showdown!

Mike Matei / July 21st, 2014

For the AVGN 10th Anniversary celebration, James and Mike torture themselves with Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde on NES once again! But this time, we’ve invited some guests to try the game too! (to be tortured that is!) Guests include: Spoony, AlphaOmegaSin, The Game Chasers, Shane Luis, Ryan Schott, 8-Bit Eric, Grimsie42 and Bad Luck Bootsy! Since we’ve played this game many times before in other videos, this time we are jumping right to the infamous barrel stage!

With Castlevania II there was a good game clearly buried beneath obnoxious grind and obtuse puzzles. Lots of games *could* be fixed but only a few really scream to be tweaked to uncover a gem of a game.

I’ve gotten pretty far into the barrel stage before, but I never knew you could enter the houses! Damn, thanks for showing, I may win the game yet! Or most likely not. I’d say I’ve got about the same skills as James, no where near Booty’s level and I was thinking if anyone could do it, my money would be on him.

An the last level is *supposed* to be pretty much unbeatable. You can beat it in theory, and you get a boring non-ending, but the intended way is to beat the game as Hyde, in which case you get the “good ending”. So the difficulty of the last level doesn’t really matter: You are *supposed* to constantly turn into Hyde.

Fuck yeah! This is by far the best lets play video ever made. The cover just blew my mind. AlphaOmegaSin and Spoony alongside Mike and James playing this crappy game, I’d never guess that would happen.

You know a great idea for a video would be to try and track down the individuals who made these terrible games and interview them to find out why the games are so bad. It would finally answer what The Nerd is always asking, “what were they thinking?!”

This game is not that bad, but it can be slow and boring, especially when playing the Dr. Jekyll portion. The graphics are similar to Castelvania II, and some of the sounds and music remind me of certain sections of Rygar.

You can win this game. It is not as impossible as it may seem, and you have unlimited continues. The trick is to progress along as Dr. Jekyll and have Mr. Hyde about one stage behind.

In the Dr. Jekyll portion, you can duck under shots from the kid’s slingshot, use your cane to kill the bees, use money to stop the opera singer from singing (too bad you can’t do this in real life), and jump over just about everything else. For the bombs in Dr. Jekyll’s portion, you can barely tag the bomber and walk back left or just continue right as soon as the bomb as set in order to avoid damage. Further into the game, the bomb range seems to expand. In the very last stage, the bomb range is very far, but that is somewhat intentional because at that point you want to turn into Mr. Hyde. For the last stage as Dr. Jekyll, it is best to go back left and jump in order to avoid damage from a set bomb… ideally, you only want the bomb to cause the Anger Meter to increase. It is best to avoid the barrels because they usually just cause damage instead of increasing the Anger Meter. The dog and opera singer’s notes (at a distance) are also good at causing the Anger Meter to increase in the last stage.

The Mr. Hyde portion is also not that difficult, but there are some occasions where you seem to just die from getting hit once or falling. Again, you have endless continues, so just use a continue and be patient.

When Dr. Jekyll gets to the last stage, make sure to get hit enough to turn into Mr. Hyde. When you are Mr. Hyde, you now need to surpass the location of where Dr. Jekyll is at. On the last stage, Mr. Hyde will go onto the rooftops. After getting through the rooftops, Mr. Hyde will get to the church gates and fight the final boss, which is not too difficult (mostly stay to the right, shoot as the boss appears, and do your best to dodge the boss’ shots).

After the final boss is defeated in the Mr. Hyde section, you will return back to the Dr. Jekyll section. However, there will be absolutely no more obstacles (no barrels, bombs, dogs, opera singers, etc.). You then just walk to the church gates and win. The ending is of Dr. Jekyll getting married. This is the “good” ending.

If you are a glutton for punishment, then do everything possible to avoid turning into Mr. Hyde. If you can somehow clear the last stage as Dr. Jekyll (which can be difficult because of all of the barrels) without killing the boss in Mr. Hyde’s section, you will win the game, but this will give the “bad” ending with no marriage (although in reality, for some people, that might be a “good” ending).

Is the barrel stage they were playing the last stage of the game? Just wondering, if so then they could have easily won this game by simply turning to Hyde and not replenishing the the anger meter so he reverted back to Jekyll. I want to make sure for myself too, as I can get to the barrel stage, but usually give up. If I known it is best to progress as Hyde here, it would have been a lot easier.

Yes, they were on the barrel stage with Dr. Jekyll. This is the last stage of the game for the Dr. Jekyll portion.

They needed to carefully get past the first group of barrels and use the first bomber’s blast to help switch the Anger Meter 1/4-1/2 of the way. To do this, let the bomber drop his explosive, go back left (far enough to still get hit by the blast but not a direct hit), and then jump up. Ideally, you want the blast to switch the Anger Meter significantly more than the Life Meter. You can continually use the bombers’ blasts to help switch the Anger Meter further. As you progress, you can try using the dog and opera singer’s notes to help.

In the very last section of the game with Mr. Hyde, you want the Life Meter to be at least 1/2 full because you end up getting easily damaged by random things appearing on the screen, and you need at least a small amount of energy left to be able to take a few hits from the final boss.

Once you are on Mr. Hyde’s section, do what you can to progress through the stages. If you clear a stage, the game will save that location point, so you will start on your furthest stage if you die and then continue. I recommend getting as far as possible with Mr. Hyde before Dr. Jekyll is on the last stage (the barrel stage) because it is much more difficult to get Dr. Jekyll to change into Mr. Hyde on the last stage without taking significant damage.

From what I saw in the team showdown video, I think they had a lot of ground to make up… it looks like they were on the 4th stage for the Mr. Hyde section, so as Mr. Hyde they would have had to clear the 4th stage (the park), die off and continue, clear the 5th stage (the cemetery), die off and continue, and then clear the 6th stage (the town and final boss). And as I mentioned, it is difficult to get Dr. Jekyll to turn into Mr. Hyde and have a significant amount strength left in the Life Meter.

Correction on the game I remember mike saying you have to get back to where you started going the opposite direction, that’s not true
the meter under the life meter determines Dr. Jekyll or Mr Hyde so when the meter goes all the way down you turn into Mr Hyde. when you play as Mr. Hyde and you kill enemies your meter will go up when it reaches full again you turn back into Dr Jekyll it doesn’t matter how far you go the object is to kill enemies and raise the meter JUST AN FYI for anyone playing the game i was just was playing it now and realized that’s how it works

How bad can one game be? The fact that THE Nerd and his Council of Nerds collectively could not beat this mufuckin piece of shit is indicitive of the fact that this is the worst game ever created. Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde? More like Dr. Ass and Mr. Shit.